Bristol City v Blackpool: Updates as Seasiders kick off their Championship campaign at Ashton Gate

“Blackpool were promoted through the play-offs so they’ve got a bit of momentum behind them.

“They’ve had a bit of a difficult pre-season but there are no easy games in the Championship.

“The bottom line for us is that our performances are what we expect them to be. The biggest problem of last year was the trail-off of our own performances.

“It’s very difficult to measure yourself against opponents if you always shoot yourselves in the foot like we did last year.

“But they’ll be a decent team and obviously Jerry Yates was in fine form last year, so we’ll have to wary of him.

“I don't know about it being like Christmas Day but we're looking forward to the start of it, because we've worked hard in pre-season and it's got a different feel here and the makeup of the squad is different, so we're looking forward to getting started again.”

“Quite rightly the supporters will want to celebrate because only a few got a chance to do that at Wembley with us.

“But from our side, we’ve got a job to do. It’s business. We want to enjoy what we’re doing and we want the supporters to enjoy seeing what we’re doing.

“But I can assure you, quite quickly after Wembley, our focus turned to planning and preparing for the Championship and that’s what we’ve been doing.

“We’re excited, of course we are. We’re looking forward to it. But come 3pm on Saturday, we’ll be ready to go.

“Bristol City will be looking to improve on what they did last season, because they didn’t have a great season by their standards.

“Nigel Pearson is obviously a very experienced manager and they’ve got a very experienced squad.

“They’ve got some very experienced men in their team and it’s a big club, a lovely ground and I’m sure the supporters will be turning up expecting them to get three points. We’ll have to go there and try and spoil that, but what a challenge.

“I’m sure it will be a fantastic pitch, a great stadium and there’s nothing but excitement for us.”

Daniel Gretarsson and Kenny Dougall could play some part at Ashton Gate this afternoon having returned to training this week.

Elsewhere, Demetri Mitchell (above) will miss out as a result of the knee injury he suffered in the recent friendly against Morecambe.

The Seasiders are still awaiting news on Kevin Stewart, who rolled his ankle during Tuesday night’s outing against Manchester City.

Matty Virtue (ACL) and Gary Madine (groin) remain absent, while Teddy Howe, Bez Lubala and Joe Nuttall didn’t feature at all during pre-season.

Summer signings Josh Bowler, Oliver Casey, Sonny Carey, Callum Connolly, Daniel Grimshaw, Reece James, Tyreece-John Jules, Richard Keogh and Shayne Lavery will all be hoping to make their competitive debuts.

Bristol City, meanwhile, will be without Antoine Semenyo and Robbie Cundy for today’s opener.

Neil Critchley’s League One play-off final winners finally get their 2021/22 Championship campaign underway today.

It’s fair to say it’s been a disruptive pre-season for the Seasiders, who have had to battle Covid and a spate of injuries among the squad.

But all that gets forgotten today as Pool make the step-up to the second tier of English football for the first time since 2015. And how the club has changed since then, both on and off the field.

Critchley’s men come into today’s curtain raiser on the back of a mixed pre-season in terms of results. They beat Southport and Carlisle United, drew with Morecambe, but suffered defeats to Accrington Stanley, Burnley and Manchester City.

But as we all know, friendly results tell us very little.

As for Bristol City, they’ll be looking to improve on last season, where they finished 19th, nine points above the dropzone. Nigel Pearson’s side have only brought in three new players this summer, compared to Blackpool’s nine.

And welcome back! Back to league football and back in the Championship.

The Seasiders make their return to the second tier of English football this afternoon for the first time in six years. Nigel Pearson’s Bristol City are the opponents at Ashton Gate.

Follow the blog for all the build-up, team news and live match updates.